Tic Tac Toe
by the-she-celt
Summary: Two souls converge in hell on earth, amidst bloody limbs, charred fingers, angry words, and clacking keys. He has no more trust to give-except, perhaps, to someone with the keys to his salvation. She might be just what he needs-or she might bring about his downfall. Only time will tell.


**Tic Tac Toe**

_**The Ardennes Forest, December 1944**_

The final explosions spat their ire through the air before the sun had risen, and the world faded into silence once more. Buried beneath five feet of snow, eyelashes snagging the tattered balaclava wound around his face, he counted his heartbeats, listening to the drumbeat hammering in his head and bleeding out into the quiet. A full minute ticked past in blessed peace. No boom of far-off guns with Berlin accents. No crash of shattered tree trunks hurling themselves to the ground amidst their fallen brethren. No shriek of a blood-hungry bomb. Not a sound wormed past the blanket of snowflakes. Only the ragged dance of his breath and the unceasing moans of his empty belly pressed themselves against the snowy walls of his hiding place.

Silence was seductive. In its embrace, his body could loosen its tightly-wound coils, relax well-honed fear, drift on waves of exhaustion murmuring nursery rhymes to his soul. His mind could open its gates, let raindrops of oxygen dull the piercing shards of memories stuffed into his brain, rest at last.

Silence was deadly.

Pulling his knees under him, he heaved himself slowly upright, groaning as his muscles whined a protest. His back broke the barrier of snow and sound flooded his ears once more: shouts, screams, cries for a mother too far away to hear her child's pain. His heart settled on his lungs like an anchor. Yanking his limbs to attention, he pulled himself out of his hidey-hole onto the hard-packed snow, trampled flat by feet, throwing up one hand to shield his eyes from the first rays of sunlight peeking over the horizon, and peered into the dawn.

The valley was pockmarked with black holes of sizzling, burnt snow and the remains of splintered trees. The icy air stank of blood and burning flesh. Half a dozen men were crawling free of their foxholes around him, mouths twisting in horror as they re-entered the world.

The snow was too deep for him to run, but he struggled towards the nearest body as quickly as his limbs could move. Snowflakes were waltzing giddily downwards from the sky to join their friends on the ground, planting tiny kisses upon the smooth cheeks of a boy of sixteen. Curled up like a newborn babe, he sobbed for his mother in a voice choked by the broken branch punched through his lungs.

"Hey now, hey there, shh-shhh-shhh-shhh." Dropping to one knee, he reached to loosen the strap of the boy's helmet and rip it away. "Oh God, _Johnny."_

"T-T-To-o-om?" Johnny rasped, blinking up at him. The single word set him coughing with a horrible hacking sound. Blood whispered paths along Cupid's bow lips and down an unshaven chin, bubbling in the mouth and quenching his cries of pain. A whimper barely managed to make itself heard amidst the breaths rattling in the thin boy's chest.

"Aye, it's me." Tom whispered, dropping to his knees and reaching to drag Johnny's form into his arms, careful to avoid the splintered ends of the branch protruding in a wet mess of flesh and blood from between the boy's shoulder blades. His own breath softened into a hum as steady as his hands. He drew up one knee to support the boy, tangled his fingers in cornsilk-blond hair, and coaxed the head down onto his shoulder, cradling it against his neck. "Close your eyes." he murmured. His lilt mingled with gagging breaths shaking the chest pressed close to his. "Let them close, Johnny boy, let them close…"

Only once he felt the brush of falling eyelashes against his neck did he slip the revolver from its holster at his hip and press its barrel against the nape of the boy's neck, angling the barrel up towards the sky. Shaking fingers clutched his shoulder. His lips quivered. One shot, the sound muffled by the whirling snowflakes, and the gasping stopped.

He sat hunched in the snow, shoulders shaking, sobs bubbling unuttered in his chest, until the contents of his arms had grown cold and the borrowed blood had frozen onto his coat. When his lump-stuffed throat was hoarse, he lowered the tangled limbs to the ground, muscles aching like those of an old man. Shifting onto his haunches, he unfastened the various buckles and straps around the icy limbs and gathered the rifle, handgun, knife, ammunition, and compass into a heap. His fingers were fumbling with the top button of the coat when a sob met his ears. He turned, squinting; the sun was above the horizon and blinding him with its reflection off the icicles on the tree branches. Silhouetted against its brilliance, hands pressed tightly over the mouth to muffle further sobs, was a small figure so bundled in layers that its gender was indeterminate. Instinctively, he reached out a hand, wincing at the sight of Johnny's blood under his fingernails.

"You must be new here." he managed to mumble. "Else you'd be used to this."

The figure shuddered, and bent swiftly to squeeze his hands with mitten-coated fingers.

"Not that it gets better, when you've seen it before." Why was he still talking? He shut his jaw with a snap, and bent once more over the body. With the help of the warmth-suffused hands of the stranger, he stripped the corpse of coat, boots, and socks, and rose, arms full. The sun was staining the ground golden. The figure was shivering in all its layers.

"Come and have some coffee." he said firmly, beckoning with a jerk of his chin. "It's good for shock."

The fire nestled at the base of three towering pine trees was small, but warm. He counted fifteen men huddled around it, barely a fifth of the number that had arrived in the forest three weeks previously. The one closest to the flames, a raggedly dark crow against the rosy hue of sunrise, offered him a steaming cup as he approached.

"Thanks, Barrow." He gulped the bitter liquid greedily, eyes watering at the feeling of quiet hands touching his back and shoulders. He knew that they were watching him, silently thanking him for what he'd done…and perhaps wondering how he'd done it. Again. He wished he knew. "Good to see you're still in one piece."

"Likewise, Branson." Barrow gulped from his own mug. He held a cigarette in two shabbily gloved fingers. His dark eyes were hollow, and the twist at the corner of his mouth was becoming steadily more pronounced. He nodded towards the figure hovering by Tom's side, blinking a pair of deep blue eyes against the sunlight. "Who's this?"

"Sybil Crawley, Agent of the Allied Espionage and Information Organization, Wired Division." Heads flickered upwards in shock at the sound of the low-pitched, carefully enunciated, decidedly female voice. The figure pushed back her hood and unwound a thick scarf from around the lower half of her face. The delicate swoop of a jawline, the arches of high cheekbones, the blush of soft cheeks, and the bow of a lush mouth joined the deep blue eyes and startlingly dark lashes to form a strikingly beautiful face. "Good morning to you."

Silence hung heavy in the air for a moment. Thomas broke it.

"Fuck." he huffed. "A bleeding nob in our midst."

"_Thomas."_ Tom hissed, gritting his teeth. Christ, if he'd known a bureaucrat was coming—

But Crawley only smiled, lips curving like the swoop of a violin's bow. "At ease." she said, glancing at him over her shoulder. "I've been living with soldiers since D-Day, I'm used to coarse language. I'm not above using it myself."

"Well, what better place to use it than out here?" Thomas quipped, tone wry. "Thomas Barrow, at your service."

"Pleasure." She offered her hand and shook his firmly, then in turn offered her gloved palm to each ragged figure around the campfire. As each scarred, bruised, bloody face met hers, glowing in the icy air, and each frostbitten hand gripped her gloved fingers, her eyebrows drew just a little bit closer to each other. Tom wondered why; was it because, with the exception of Corporal John Bates, every man present introduced himself as a private? Was it because Rob's cheeks were blue with cold, that William shook with a three-fingered right hand, that there wasn't a piece of clothing between them that wasn't threadbare and spotted with holes? Was it the exhaustion written in the hollows beneath their eyes, the hunger in the negative spaces of their cheeks, the terror in the tremors of their lips? Every face was pale and ashy, lips stained black at the corners from too much nicotine, eyes grimy with sleepiness. Their mouths shook as they tried to smile in response to the warm arch of her mouth.

She was impressive to see. She spoke softly and warmly to each of them, reaching to place an extra hand on their elbows, flashing her white teeth in a grin that pulled a similar grin onto their faces. They followed her with their eyes as she made her way around the circle, as graceful as a ballerina in an enormous, worn pair of boots. Finally, she offered her hand to Tom.

A shiver leapt over his skin at the feeling of her warm, soft fingers enclosed in his own calloused hands. He was taller than her, though only by a few inches, but her face tipped back to meet his eyes with her own deep blue orbs, as blue as a summer's day ocean. Her cheeks blushed pink in the frigid air, and she absent-mindedly bit the corner of her bottom lip as she smiled at him.

"So, another Brit." Barrow remarked, letting out a cough. He thumped his chest with a closed fist, tightening the fingers of his other hand on his cigarette. "What's a posh bird like you doing out here?"

"I've come from Captain Smiley; he and his Seventh Armored Division are located seven miles southeast of here." She peeled a blue woolen scarf from around her mouth and offered it silently to Mark. This was followed by two pairs of gloves from her pockets, her enormous man's overcoat, and two thick sweaters, all of which she passed around to the group. The men murmured appreciatively at the clothing, pulling it on without delay. Alfred, Jimmy, and Albert bundled into the coat together and fastened the snaps until only their pale faces peeked through the oversized collar.

"I'm sorry there's so little." she apologized, refastening the belt of her second coat around her waist, over a pair of men's overalls and a sweater. The dark, heavy fabrics swam on her lithe form. "I wore as many clothes as I could. We're trying to bring up supplies to keep the soldiers alive, but it's not easy."

"Wait, you said seven miles?" Tom's eyebrows rose. "How'd you get here? I don't see an escort."

"I walked." she said rather simply, plucking a newsboy's cap off her head. Chocolate brown curls tumbled free down her shoulders. "We could see your fire; Smiley's got his camp up on a ridge with a pretty good view."

More eyebrows rose. Seven miles, in temperatures that claimed more limbs to frostbite every day, through a forest crowded with Allies and Axis alike, at nighttime, when the majority of bombs were set off, the majority of grenades hurled, and the majority of men killed.

"You walked…" He trailed off, speechless. He had led charges, sat in trenches, fired shots, hurled grenades and bombs, had remained unflinching as fire exploded around him—and this delicate, bright-eyed girl before him put him to shame. She tugged her gloves tighter on her hands and sat unceremoniously on a heap of snow, brushing her curls off her cheeks. Her eyes snagged on him before darting away, and Tom glanced down at himself. His coat was sticky and stained rusty red, but he dared not remove it. Instead, he poured a second cup of coffee and offered it to Crawley.

"Careful." he warned. "It's more rum than coffee."

She shrugged and took a careful sip. "Ohh…" Her eyes closed for a moment. "That's _warm_."

The men chuckled, understanding perfectly. Half of them didn't sleep at night for cold. Winter's bitter nip was a greater danger than the Krauts' guns.

"Seven miles." John Bates said softly from across the fire. "Must be something important." Agent Crawley nodded, tightening her grip on her coffee cup.

"Yes. I'm looking for Captain Connell."

"Dead." Barrow said brusquely. "Bomb hit his tent two weeks ago. Took him and all his maps with him. We're stone blind out here, have been for ages."

Crawley blinked, let out a long slow breath. "Whew." she mumbled. "Well, that explains a lot."

"Why do I have a feeling it's not good?" Barrow muttered.

"Well…"

Crawley crossed her legs and nestled her cup into the snow. She held both hands out to the fire. Seated amidst the men, with her face uncovered and wearing only a few layers now, she seemed both younger and smaller. She was beautiful, like a fallen angel hastily wrapped in mortal clothes and planted in hell.

Tom squatted beside her, taking another sip of coffee. "Well, tell us. What's an intelligence agent doing out here?"

"Shouldn't you be at a cozy desk in London?" Albert quipped.

"Yeah—so if she's here, it's bad." Tom said. Crawley swallowed.

"Very astute, Mr. Branson."

"Just Tom, please."

She inclined her chin. "Then I'm Sybil. Just Sybil." A snowflake caught in her eyelashes. Tom's fingers twitched with the urge to wipe it away, much to his own shock. "Well, yes, it's bad." Digging in the pocket of her coat, she removed a chart and set it on the ground, anchoring one corner with her cup. Tom reached to hold another.

"Here—" She indicated. "—are our lines. _Here_ are the German lines. And here's the problem: when we landed in June, we took Hitler by surprise. D-Day worked; we pushed him back. We've pushed the Germans to the western border of France. On the Eastern Front, Stalin's hounding him too—Intel reports it's one bloodbath after another over there. But that's not good for us, because Hitler's planning a massive counter-offense against us, the weaker line. And the plain fact is that troops out here are in trouble. You lack ammunition, troops, food, clothes—you weren't even supposed to be here in the winter, you're grossly underequipped to meet the bulk of the German army. They _are_ prepared; they aren't his strongest troops, but they have ammunition, troops, and supplies, and they're facing a ragtag, half-starved army strung out like a ten-year-old's missing teeth. And you men in particular are in danger. You must've lost your radio as well—" She glanced at Tom, who nodded. "—because you haven't retreated with the rest of the line. You're right in the middle of the two lines. You're in No Man's Land out here, and you're about to be slaughtered."

Silence fell in the wake of her words, following the icy path of Tom's heart downwards and resting on his lungs with unshakeable pressure. He clenched his teeth and narrowed his eyes, squinting in the direction of the sunrise as though analyzing the situation. The filthy braid adorning the remaining lapel of his jacket seemed to be digging pins into his skin. _You're the captain here, don't you remember? They pulled you off the bloody ground and slapped a title on your skin because they thought you deserved it-so deserve it! Lead! These are your men, you're responsible for their lives!_

Something rolled in his empty stomach. He was going to be sick.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, why are we still witting here? We've got to go, now, before they come!"

"Where is everyone else, how far away?"

"Oh God, we'll be butchered alive!"

"SHUT IT!" Thomas bellowed over the babble. He whirled on Sybil. "Any good news? Where do we go?"

"Nowhere yet." Sybil flexed her fingers. "We've got one advantage—"

"Wait, let me guess." Harold snapped, scrubbing his chin with a filthy hand. "We've got _you?"_

Sybil didn't flinch. She met his iron-eyed gaze steadily, chin up, shoulders down. Her neck whispered up from the collar of her coat amidst a forest of curls. "Yes."

Harold barked a short, sharp laugh. "Fucking brilliant."

"What are _you_ going to do, sprout wings and carry us away?" Alfred demanded.

"Shut up and let her speak." Thomas snapped. For once, they obeyed.

Sybil shot him a glance. Her blue eyes flashed. "We have one thing the Germans don't-just one thing, and we need to use the hell out of it, because it's the only real hope we've got. We have our spy network, and it's unparalleled by any other in the entire world, on both sides of the war. I'm part of that network, that's why I'm here. I'm one of a dozen agents sent out all along the front lines, and we were all sent to look for the camp closest to the German lines. We were told to use that location to our advantage. You're completely off the maps."

"You're saying that's a _good_ thing?" Harold demanded.

"Definitely! I'm here now, and there's only one thing to do: I need to reach that camp over there—" She nodded into the distance. "—and access their radio, and I must do it tonight. If I get there, I can intercept their messages, distort them, cause as much confusion as possible. I can hold off any attacks until more troops arrive."

Mouth twisting, Thomas spat a precious mouthful of coffee across the snow. "Let me get this straight: you want us to cross No Man's Land and get into that motherfucking camp _tonight?"_ he rasped, staring at her. "Are you out of your _mind?"_

"It's that, or sit here and wait to be slaughtered. And there's no 'we' about it." she said, rather matter-of-factly. "_I _will be going over there tonight. I just thought I'd let you know. You are the front line, after all, you deserve to know when your lives are endangered."

"_Endangered? _You mean they're completely and fucking totally in the hand of one woman!"

"Oh God, they'll kill us...they'll kill us all…"

"We need to move, now, get back behind our own lines-"

"Where _are_ our own lines? How do we know the motherfucking Germans haven't already crossed them?"

"We could run straight into a trap-oh God, oh God, oh God-"

"You say _you_ will cross those lines tonight." Sam interjected. "You alone?"

She bristled. "Yes, me! What's the matter, don't you believe that I can?"

"You want us to place our lives in _your_ hands?"

"Yes." she snapped, grinding her teeth. "I thought I'd made that perfectly clear."

His jaw snapped shut audibly. "Crystal—and it's extraordinarily unappealing."

"Your opinion doesn't particularly matter." With a toss of her head, she turned back to her coffee, dismissing him like a whiny schoolboy. "We have our orders."

"Who the hell do you think you are to give us orders?" Barrow demanded. "We're not servants on your posh estate! We're the ones risking our necks out here!"

"I'm not downplaying your sacrifices, but an army is built upon the use of obedience! We have orders, and we need to follow them!"

"Follow _you_, you mean, follow you straight to hell!" Alfred's voice cracked with fear. "Damn you, woman, you'll get us all killed!"

Sybil snapped her teeth together. Spine rigid, she placed the cup on the ground before rising to her full height, glaring at the men before her.

"Let me make one thing _quite_ clear." she hissed. "I didn't come out here asking to be mocked, scorned, or belittled. I'm a soldier just like you. I'm here to win a war, not squabble like schoolchildren, and I'm here to save your goddamned lives! If you have a problem with trusting a woman, then turn around and run back to your lines! See if I care! I'm going over there whether you approve of it or not, and _there—is—nothing_ you can do to stop me!"

"Good riddance, but I'll be fucked sideways before I'll follow you!" Jimmy shouted. "And I'd like to verify these _orders_ before I, for one, think about trusting you."

She yanked papers from her pocket. "Feast your bloody eyes: I am Agent Sybil Crawley!"

"I don't give a _damn _for your piece of paper, what does it mean out here?" Jimmy spat. "And what do _you_ mean out here? Nothing, that's what! You're not some general's pet out here, you're just a liability!"

"Yeah! I trust my friends, not some government bitch!"

"Like it or not, I have the advantage of superior information at the present time, and if you can't handle taking orders from a woman, then—"

"Fuck your autocratic bullshit, that's not going to save our lives!"

"If you think that you can address me like a snot-nosed schoolgirl, then brace yourself for a shock! I'm not one of your companions, I don't have to tolerate you, and I _won't!"_

"Damn you! Did you come out here to fight Nazis or us?"

Head buried in the shelter of his own arms, Tom could feel the angry words bouncing around his skull, trailing streaks of red and black in their wake. His heart was pounding in his chest and breaths rasped in his throat. Squeezing his eyes shut, he forced himself to breathe slow, deep breaths. Every nerve in his body was quaking with the urge to grab his friends by the hands and run, away from the death awaiting them in the mouths of the Germans' guns, back to the safety of their own lines—but something in Sybil's voice urged him to turn and face those guns instead, to fight, to trust her. Trust, he knew, was even more deadly than silence. Trust could not be requested and given like an invitation to tea; out here in the cold and the gunpowder and the blood, it was earned, with a helping hand, shelter, cover. He trusted every one of his men. They had shown their trust in him time and time again; when O'Connell fell, and the choice of leadership wavered between the two corporals among them, even John had demanded that he accept the position of captaincy. If it was the last action of his life, he would not, ever, sacrifice their lives. It was up to him to keep them safe, keep them alive as long as possible, and to soothe their way into death's arms when at last their bodies were punctured beyond repair. Charging headfirst into a camp on a suicide mission was most definitely not part of the job description.

And yet…

"I came out here to _help! _At what point did I ask you to accompany me? If you dislike taking orders from a _bitch_, then don't worry your misogynistic little head about it, because I'm going over there _alone!" _

Her voice was so furious that he tilted his head to one side, peeking at her above the crook of his elbow. She looked like an angry goddess preparing to smite the mortal who dared question her.

"FUCKING FINE!" Harold screamed. "But if you get caught and killed, we're the only ones still standing between those bastards and our own lines!"

"I _won't _get caught!"

"Oh sure! Absolutely, I really believe that _you_ could sneak in there and sneak out undetected! Don't make me laugh!"

"We should retreat _now!"_

"You can't! Your orders are to stay put while I infiltrate their radio!"

"Don't you hear me? _I don't give a fuck for your orders!"_

Tom swallowed hard as Sybil threw her head back. God have mercy, she was the most courageous woman—person—he'd ever seen.

"That's enough."

He was suddenly on his feet. The babble of fear and panicked confusion died down, and he took a fortifying swig of coffee. His veins were burning like the rocky pathways of a lava-filled volcano, and his skin burned in the icy air. He whirled towards Sybil, who jumped as his eyes landed on hers. He locked his knees, as though a more rigid stance would prevent him from drowning in those gorgeous blue-grey orbs again. His blood was bubbling, and he needed to focus.

"That's enough." he repeated, dropping his empty cup to the ground. The ground was swimming below him; he blinked and with difficulty that he refocused on Sybil's furious eyes, which became rapidly more concerned as she met his gaze. He was suddenly ferociously glad that he couldn't see his own face. He stepped forwards, thankful that his legs held him upright, though his knees wobbled. Sybil watched his approach with narrowed eyes, her gaze fixed on his face as though searching for deadly symptoms. The men had crowded close around her in their furor; he stepped through their line and close to her.

"I don't have any problem with taking orders, and certainly not from women." he said, enunciating sharply. "But we've been here for a whole fuckin' month getting pelted with shot every goddamn night and trying to choose between starving, freezing, or being blown to death."

He took a breath. Anger was pounding through his veins—anger at the Germans, anger at his men, anger at himself, anger at the whole stupid world, anger at her for being so damnably alluring in her courage. "We've buried twelve men in the past week, and now you're telling us that our only chance of survival in this bloody minefield is to trust you, and I will _not_ let anyone here die for the cause or for any thrice-bedamned orders." He took a step closer, so close that he felt her breath whisper against his cheek. "I am going to get these men out of here alive, _all_ of them." he growled. "No one else is going to die here."

"Except an interfering government cunt." Jimmy snarled. Tom whirled on the younger man, boots slipping in the snow, but the golden-headed man was out of his furious reach. "What?" he demanded. "It's no more than she deserves! Who do you think you are?" he demanded of Sybil. "You come out here barking orders and expecting us to bow and scrape and take the fall for you—"

Sybil shouldered past Tom with sudden ferocity, thrusting her chin up as she forced her way into Jimmy's path. "If that was what I wanted from life, I wouldn't be _here_." she growled. "You think I'm here for a tea party, or to wave a hanky and blow kisses at soldiers? I'm here to _work!"_

"Stop it!" Tom snapped, catching her by the shoulder and reaching out as Jimmy sprang at her, incensed. "Stop!"

The younger boy halted, glowering. "How many?" he snarled at Sybil, shoving against Tom's restraining hand. "How many of _your_ friends have died out here?"

"I—"

"I LOST MY BROTHER!" Jimmy howled, fingernails scrabbling at the back of Tom's hand. "MY BROTHER, FOR YOUR STUPID WAR!"

Thomas sprang to his feet and wrapped both arms around Jimmy from behind. "Stop—stop! Hush, it's alright—"

"MY BROTHER!"

"Shhh…"

"SEVENTEEN! HE WAS SEVENTEEN, DO YOU HEAR?"

"I'm sorry." Sybil bit her lip, staring as Thomas pulled Jimmy back and down into the snow, muttering condolences in his smoker's rasp. The blond struggled, screaming formless words, punching aimlessly. One fist glanced off Thomas' cheekbone, but the dark-haired man held on.

"It was only three weeks ago." Tom murmured. "He's suffering."

Her gaze darted to him. "Did you…put him down…as well?"

He stared back at her. "We've lost sixty member of this unit." He licked his lips. "I killed twenty-seven myself."

Something welled in her eyes, but she stood unmoving, staring at him with eyes like bruises. He swallowed the lump welling in his throat.

"You can't understand. You haven't been here—you can't." He shook his head numbly, as if trying to shake water from his ears.

"I won't let you down. I promise."

He hesitated. Every instinct warned him not to trust a young woman with optimism lining her eyes; no hardened veteran could ever retain that spirit. But her eyes lured him in, begged him to place his life in her hands. By now, he would, in a second—but the lives of his men? He couldn't be callous with those.

Jimmy's scream faded to a choking sob, and he swore under his breath. "How many men have you seen die?" he demanded. "Boys, men—I've stabbed them, shot them, choked _my mates_ because I thought that I could give the ones with their bodies still intact a better chance of fuckin' living if I did! And now you're telling me that we're in the middle of a fuckin' minefield and those men, them down there, the ones who've held on this long, are going to die within the week and there's absolutely fuckin' nothing I can do except trust you?"

Something was sparkling in the corner of one; his own smarted in sympathy and he whirled away, lashing out with one numb foot at the snow drifts.

"Goddamnit." He swore, racking his hands through his hair and turning back to her. "I am not going to let them die for the _cause, _not for any fuckin' _orders_, not by any other hand! If it's the last thing I do, I am going to get them out of here alive, all of them, I'm not going to let anyone else die on my watch! They deserve it, don't you see that?" His throat was closing over. A wounded animal was caged in his chest, howling with pain, but only whimpers escaped his choked-shut throat. "They've earned it." he croaked, fists opening and closing uselessly. He fastened his eyes on the ragged group gathered around Jimmy with soft murmurs and restraining hands, blissfully oblivious. "And at the end of the day, you're not a soldier. If you think you can pull this off, you're a fool. When you talk about fighting, we're not talking about a fit of teenage rebellion; their _lives _are at stake. I won't give responsibility for them over to a fancy lass who wants to play at being a soldier."

Her lips pulled back, baring her teeth, and her arms flew up to shove him. Caught off guard, he stumbled, and his fingers closed around her elbow as he fell, dragging her across him and flinging her into the snow. Rolling onto one knee, he pinned her beneath him, hand flashing down to the knife in his belt before his conscious mind stilled his instincts. Propped up on her elbows, cheeks flushed with cold, she glared furiously at him. Removing his hand from his belt, he was about to move away when she reached up, caught him by the coat collar, and yanked his face down towards hers.

"Then _don't_." she enunciated. Her eyes blazed, but her words were measured and he felt a sudden heave of relief in the base of his stomach; she'd heard the desperation in his tone. "Give them to a woman who's had to claw her way up to where she is now. Give them to a woman with no intention of sacrificing men's lives for a pin on a map. Give them to a woman who's first a nurse, second a codebreaker, and third a civilian. I'm not naïve, and I'm not stupid. This is not my first mission, Branson, nor is this a position with which I am entirely unfamiliar!"

_To which _position_ are you referring?_ he wondered as he steadied himself with one hand in the snow next to her head.

Her cheeks flamed scarlet. "Our position in the lines, you idiot."

Oh God, had he said that out loud? He flushed dark red, trying and failing not to glance down at her mouth as she licked her lips. He yanked his eyes upwards, red-faced, only to see that she was blushing too.

His lips quirked upwards and he had to wrestle a smile away. Much to his horror, his libido decided to take an interest in the proceedings; it had been years since he'd had a woman on her back, laid out before him, and his mind was starting to supply pillows and a mattress for chunks of snow—_bad bad bad, ABORT, you moron, she's a coworker and this is most emphatically not the time._

Shifting his weight back onto his heels, he rose to his feet, eyes darting downwards to watch as her fingers released his coat collar. She sat up and busied herself with brushing snow from her hair. Her cheeks were still pink. It was a very fetching look on her.

"God, I wish I could trust you." he admitted, staring openly at her. She looked up into his eyes, head tipped back. She seemed very vulnerable, with her hat disheveled and her neck rising like a swan's from the folds of her scarf, but simultaneously hardy, with her eyes shining in the early morning light and the aristocratic lines of her face bathed in shadows. She stared back for a moment, then in one movement ripped off her gloves and held up her hands to be inspected.

"Trust these fingers." she said softly, wriggling them. "They've never failed me yet."

He crouched. Her hands were tiny, the skin lily-white save for the knuckles, which were red. She turned her palms over, baring calluses on the pads of the fingers, burns on her wrists, blisters and smudges of ink and expertly manicured nails lined with charcoal. Her hands were a puzzle, layers of hard work and dedication heaped upon a previous lifetime of ease and relaxation.

He glanced at her eyes again. She me this gaze calmly, eyes sparkling and shining, glistening and gleaming, leaping and tumbling waves of color. _Who were you,_ he wondered, _before this hell?_ _Who was Sybil Crawley, before Agent?_

He rose once more, this time grasping her hands and pulling her easily to her feet.

"You're not going alone." Turning, he shifted closer to the fire and reseated himself in a show of forced casualty. "We'll leave at nineteen-hundred hours, once the sun sets."

"_We?"_ she repeated, brushing snow off her shoulders. Glancing back, he smiled to see her tiny feet disappearing into the prints made by his own massive feet.

"I'm going with you."

"Why?" she demanded, cocking her head on one side. "Is it because you don't trust me? Or don't you think a woman can save your skinny ass just as well as a man?"

Her tone held a new respect, but also a challenge.

Looking over her shoulder, he gestured at the ragged group of men with his chin. "I wouldn't send any of them out there alone."

She studied his face for a long moment before finally nodding and reseating herself. He sipped his coffee, forcing his fingers to relax. A long, tense silence lingered, broken only by Jimmy's ragged breaths. The golden-headed boy clung stubbornly to Thomas' lapels, shoulders shaking, and one by one the others slipped quietly back to their places around the fire. Gazes flickered guardedly from Thomas' head, bent closer over Jimmy's as he rocked them back and forth, to Tom, who held his gaze on the flames as the men muttered to each other. Sybil's head was bent deliberately over her map, but her eyes weren't moving. He wondered whether she was holding her breath; he certainly was.

_Everything depends on this_ he knew. Since Connell's death, their band had been a democracy, and he knew that no-one could command these battle-worn, stress-strung men to obey. They would follow his example if they so chose, and then only if his example had been effective enough to convince them of Sybil's trustworthiness.

"More coffee?" John broke the silence. Tom glanced up faux-casually.

"If there's any to spare."

"For you, always." John said with a ghost of his warm smile. He up the coffee pot, looking significantly at Sybil's map, and Tom repressed a sigh of relief. The men mumbled. Harold and Alfred remained tense, shooting glares at Sybil's back.

Tom shifted onto one knee, leaning over Sybil's shoulder to peer at the lines of black dots and crosses. She shifted obligingly to permit him a better view. "We're here." she said softly, tapping with one finger a cross inside of a circle. He nodded. Thomas shifted Jimmy in his arms and leaned over the fire to look. Bates leaned over Tom's other shoulder. Tom counted their united breaths, eying the white clouds dissipating in the frosty air.

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

_Four._

"Do you trust her?" Harold asked. Sybil glanced up into Tom's eyes. He looked quietly back for a moment. There was a beauty mark on her cheek.

"Yes." he said.

"Why?"

"She's stubborn. She's brave. She's determined. And she's smart as hell." He glanced at his men, then back at her. She was getting steadily redder by the minute. "Personally speaking, that's the type of leader I'd choose above any other. And I won't ask you to risk your lives—but if you don't trust her, trust me. I'll keep her out of danger, and no-one will die today."

Silence met his words, but he refused to let his eyes wander from Sybil's. She was smiling ever so slightly.

"Fine." Sam sighed, leaving the disgruntled group and stooping over Sybil's shoulder. "Good enough for me." One by one, Paul, Luke, the brothers Rob and Mark, Harold, and Jake returned to the fire. In Thomas' arms, Jimmy was silent. Alfred, Bobbie, Rick, and Alfred remained aloof, on the other side of the fire, still whispering. That was fine. Tom breathed once more and focused his eyes on the map again.

"What exactly is it that you need to do?" Bates inquired of Sybil.

"Hack their radio, crack their codes, obtain as much information about the counter-attack as possible, and hopefully spread a few false bulletins, raise a little hell." she said with a shrug.

Tom laughed, surprising himself—it had been a while since he'd even smiled with any real warmth.

"Well, we're pretty good at raising hell, aren't we, Tommy?" Thomas smirked. Tom grinned, raising his cup to Sybil.

"Careful, Sybil Crawley." he warned. "I'm starting to like you."

"Mutual, Tom Branson." she smirked, and lowered her head to the map before the excited little voices in his head could even whisper a shocked _what?_

Bates glanced at his face and let out a choked guffaw. Tom flushed.

By the time the sun began to sink towards the spiky-topped trees to the west, the wind had picked up, snapping at any exposed skin with bitter ferocity and weaving icy fingers through threadbare clothing. They huddled together around the fire, heads down, breaths muffled against coat collars and scarves. Through the flames, Tom watched Sybil where she sat with her back pressed against the snowy embankment, hands nestled between her wool-clad knees, rocking back and forth ever so slightly. The firelight flickered off her eyes, misty with thought and far away from her surroundings. Her lips moved ever so slightly, shaping words without sound.

His watch ticked to seven pm, just as the first stars were peeking through the clouds overhead in the murky sky, and she rose soundlessly. The men shook themselves from various stages of slumber, eyes flickering to Tom.

"Positions." he murmured, and they sprang into action. Stooping low, ten of them wormed their way up the embankment and burrowed into foxholes dotted along the upper ridge and at the bases of the surrounding trees. Tom and Thomas hid themselves behind a snow-covered oak, peering out into the gloom.

"Ready?" came a whisper. Tom glanced down at Sybil; her head was just at his shoulder. She was flexing her fingers, wriggling them into her smooth leather gloves.

"When you are." he whispered back. He clapped one hand on Thomas' shoulder, then stooped and ran for the next tree. She followed close behind him, moving close to the ground and fast.

With the eight men hidden above offering cover, should it be needed, they moved from tree to tree steadily down the slope. Finally, Tom threw his back against a pine and sucked a lungful of bitterly cold air through his teeth. Beneath the low moan of the wind in the trees, he could hear the water of the stream at the base of the hill bubbling under the ice. That stream was the boundary between purgatory and hell: once over it, they would be in enemy territory, out of range of his own men's guns, and on their own should there be trouble.

He glanced at Sybil, huddled at the base of a nearby pine. Her face was pale, jaw set. She understood their predicament perfectly. When she met his eyes, he cocked one eyebrow and placed his hand over the scabbard at his belt. He was as armed as it was possible to be, with a rifle over his shoulder, two handguns, and three knives strapped at his waist and in his boots. Removing one handgun from the inner pocket of his coat, he nodded at Sybil, then straightened his arms and held the gun level, just above her shoulder, as she darted into the open, sprang neatly across the stream, rolled once, and ducked into the shadows. He followed, holding his breath.

As they climbed the steep incline towards the firelight flickering at the top, he hung back, covering Sybil as she moved. She was indescribably graceful, leaping and rolling and squatting and running with barely a noise, springing over the ground like a sprite. He followed as best as possible while covering her, eyes moving unceasingly, scanning the area for danger. The sounds of clattering dishes and a smattering of German voices grew louder as they climbed, and the patchy moonlight slid over the cold metal of six machine guns mounted at the top of the hill. He could see the helmets of the guards stationed at the guns, and his heart hammered in his throat. He'd thought Sybil mad for suggesting this frontal entrance to the camp, but she had been right; the Germans were so deeply dug into the snow that from beside the guns, their view of the opposite hilltop was excellent, but the valley between was hidden from sight by their own ramparts. And the overhead moon was scarcely a silvery eyelash; they couldn't have seen two figures leaving the Allied camp.

Silently thanking his own self for listening to Sybil, Tom rolled behind a fallen log and placed his mouth close to Sybil's ear. "Safe." he whispered, one eye still on the helmets above. A nod was his only response, then she wriggled on her belly out from their hiding place and into the open. Gun trained on the oblivious guards, he watched with his heart in his throat as she wormed directly beneath the long muzzles of the guns; her body barely fit in the gap between the ground and their cruel noses. But the guards' vision was obscured by the snow in front of their noses, and she reached the other side safely.

Breathing deeply, Tom tucked his handgun away, flattened himself on the ground, and wriggled for all he was worth. Head down, he silently counted the barrels scraping along his back as he squirmed directly under the Kraus' nose. He could smell the barley in the stew the guards were munching—and complaining about. One was reminiscing about the stew his mother used to make. Another snapped at him to shut up. Tom wriggled safely past and rolled into the ditch on the other side where Sybil waited.

"Well done." she whispered before taking off once more. He followed on her heels as she wriggled through the shadow-steeped rim of the embankment directly above the guards, the campfire, the makeshift hospital, and the tents to the tent set up at the very back of the camp, high on the ridge above the rest of the Germans. A lone man sat slumped before a table heaped with gewgaws and mechanics; Tom's knife whispered across his throat and he breathed no more.

Tom, glad for the chance to stand once more, dragged the body into the back of the tent and positioned himself in the shadows there, rifle in hand, as Sybil pulled the chair closer to the table and the radio, which was beeping incessantly and spewing forth rolls of worn paper and floods of audio recordings.

"How does it look?" he whispered.

"Better than I'd expected." Pulling off her gloves, she flexed her fingers once more and looped the headset around her neck. "Much, much better—it's working, at least."

She pulled the headphones over her ears, brow furrowed. Tom stretched his neck to peek at the men gathered in the snowy basin below. He could count twelve at the fire, another five at the guns, and at least nine in the infirmary.

"They're ready for this." he remarked, eyeing the crates of shotgun shells stacked neatly by the tents.

"Of course they are. Hitler's been preparing this assault for months." Sybil removed the headphones, tilted something akin to a typewriter on one side, and began fiddling furiously with the machinery. "Their radio is top-of-the-line."

"What're you doing to it?"

"Something HQ won't expect: I'm altering the wavelength, which in turn requires a different type of calibration for the receiver—something lower than what they've got."

"In English?"

Her fingers never once paused, but she cast an amused glance over her shoulder. "They've got a more advanced type of machine than we typically do, and I'd guess that their type is standard for all the German radios, which means that they can communicate on wavelengths that we simply can't tap because we're not that advanced."

"England's not as advanced as Germany? You astound me."

She grinned. "I'm recalibrating their machine for wavelengths which we can intercept—there!" Something clunked, and the sound of the machinery changed from a hum to a whirr. "Now to start decoding…" Holding the headset to her ear with her left hand, she positioned her right hand over a tiny keyboard. As the voice in her ear continued, her fingers went into action, typing faster than his eyes could follow.

"Tic, tac, toe…" she murmured, keys clacking. "That's what I always think it sounds like: tic, tac, toe." She reached to fiddle with a control, flipped a switch, turned a knob. The fingers of her right hand never faltered. Her eyes remained fixated on the roll of paper slowly emerging from her keyboard, marked with dozens of abbreviations and numbers.

Tom gravitated to stand behind her chair, eyes flickering between the camp below and her dancing fingers. Squinting in the darkness, he could just barely make out lines of indecipherable gibberish.

_ff 2 pg6 ?_

_AH 2 add. B ? 600 hrs 3.12_

_klm ? sub357 fkgy ? ppl 12dys_

_sub3, P2, L94 ? cred 4 mach.g. 2 Sc_

_56un W 730 hrs ?_

_Gho34 pkl1 gar_

_Int of prob, in. ? unsatis._

Hours seemed to creep past in the aching cold before her shoulders unstrung and she released a soft _ahh._

"Well?" he whispered.

Her answering smile almost blinded him. "It's a good one."

"Beg pardon?"

"A good code." she explained, winding the tape firmly about her wrist. "It's a mixture of German, Italian, and some Morse, very cleverly done, too. Look." She held up the tape for his inspection. "Every odd-numbered word is in German and every even in Italian when the sentence in German begins with any letter from A to H, but if it begins with any other letter, than it's switched; every even-numbered word is German and every odd is Italian. Do you see?"

The scribbles were still entirely incomprehensible, but his jaw was sagging all the same. "You speak German and Italian?"

"Yes to the second, but the former's only rudimentary." She tapped the keys once more, flipped a switch with her left hand, removed the headphones and listened for a moment to the whirr of the machine. "My French is much better, thanks to my mother—she insisted that my governess render me fluent in one Romantic language, though that's the only useful thing one learns from a governess—well, that and how to curtsy, but nothing else, really. Anyway, I had to confer with MI5, but their only German translator was out, so instead I had to contact the FBI, bloody Americans enjoying their morning coffee, since its seven am in New York just now, and I got the entire roomful of one office, and you try telling eighteen men to shut up via wireless—"

"Hang on!" Tom caught ahold of her arm as she rose from the chair. "Do you mean to tell me that you transcribed a passage, contacted two espionage agencies, translated the passage and cracked the code all via Morse code contact?"

"Well, yes." She blinked up at him in honest surprise. Her eyes were shining.

"My God, you're amazing." he breathed. Her breath hitched. They were so close together in the tiny little tent that he could feel her breath on his chin, feel the whisper of her pulse through the wool of their coats. The air seemed suddenly warmer, and as perfectly pink as the color flooding her cheeks. He swallowed hard. "Sybil—I don't suppose—"

A sudden wail from the radio made them both jump. Sybil snatched at the headphones and ripped them free of the box. Tom's fingers flew to the trigger of his rifle and he cursed as down below them, two heads rippled upwards, overhearing the sound. Someone called up to the tent. Neither of them answered.

"We need to go, _now._" he hissed, pulling Sybil's hand. She dropped to her knees beside him, scooching backwards towards the back flap of the tent.

"The guards will be up in a minute." she whispered. "We can't get back down the way we came up."

"We'll have to go cross-country, then." Pulling open the back flap, he motioned for her to slip out first, then followed into the dark woods. "The slope's steeper there." he continued, nodding to their right. "If we go now, straight downhill through those trees, we might be able to reach the stream. It's our best shot."

She didn't even bother to look, just nodded firmly and pulled her gloves on once more. He stepped past her, slinging the rifle over his shoulder, and was just rebuttoning its strap when her hand on his arm prompted him to turn back.

Swiftly, smoothly, she stretched up onto her toes, cupped his cold cheek in her hand and pressed her lips to his. He scarcely had time to register the sweet taste of honey and dark tea before she pulled back and laced her fingers with his. "Come on then, handsome, let's route the Allies and stop that mustachioed German twat in his tracks."

Her grin was infectious. "As my lady commands." Tightening his grip on her fingers, he yanked her close to his side, pressed his lips to her cheek, and murmured "But I expect a proper kiss later."

"Get us out of here and then we'll see." she retorted. Her cheeks were pinking again.

"Follow me then, sweetheart." He pulled her into a run. Hand in hand, they raced headlong into the dark trees, blindly following the slope downwards as shouts broke out behind them and smiles tugged their lips upwards in glee.


End file.
